A Short History of Sonic the Hedgehog

Sonic the Hedgehog is the main character of a popular line of video games developed by Sega. He also stars in various spin-offs and franchises that include mangas, regular comics, TV series, animes, books, etc. He also has a lot of merchandise designed around him just like any other famous carton character.

Sonic originated from the rivalry between Sega and Nintendo, which is still going on although Nintendo has moved ahead in the mean time. Sega at that time needed something to rival the famous Mario, who was also the Mascot of Nintendo. So under the orders of Sega bosses, team Sonic developed Sonic the Hedgehog. He was a blue anthropomorphic hedgehog whose color was chosen in keeping with the Sega logo used at that time. The people who share the main credit for creating such a popular icon are - Artist Naoto Oshima, designer Hirokazu Yasuhara and programmer Yuji Naka.

The main aspect of a Sonic game is the tremendous speed at which Sonic moves. The entire gameplay depends on the speed and the momentum without which the game cannot be played.

The first game called Sonic the Hedgehog and also referred to as Sonic 1 was released for Sega's own gaming console - Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. This game is also the place where Sonic's archenemy Dr. Ivo Robotnik makes his first appearance. Robotnik has stayed on as the main villain through the franchise. The game was released on 23 June 1991.

Sonic was joined by his friend and fan Miles 'Tails' Powers in Sonic 2, a sequel to the original game which was released in 1992. Tails is a two-tailed fox who can fly for short durations and has often helped Sonic by airlifting him. This is also the game where Sonic's signature 'Spindash' move was introduced. It was later added to the original game during a legacy release.

In 1993, the game Sonic CD was released where Amy Rose was introduced. Amy Rose is a pink female hedgehog who sees Sonic as her boyfriend. She is often captured by Robotnik and subsequently rescued by Sonic. This game also sees the introduction of Metal Sonic, Sonic's evil robotic twin created by Dr. Robotnik. This is not the same as Mecha Sonic, which was also built by Robotnik but later. In this game Sonic travels through time to make the world a safer place.

In 1994, Sonic the Hedgehog 3 and its direct sequel 'Sonic and Knuckles' were both released one after another. The two games were actually meant to be one game but the developers could not keep their deadline. Here, Sonic and Tails fight Robotnik who also tricks Knuckles the Echidna into tuning against Sonic.